As your little one reaches preschool age, the “awe, she’s sucking her thumb” may turn to “oh goodness, she’s still sucking her thumb.” Infants need the sucking reflex to calm themselves when upset. As children age, they continue to use the techniques they use to self soothe until they find another effective method. Below are a few suggestions to help your preschooler quit sucking her thumb.
Talk to Your Child
We all know preschoolers love having choices and offering choices can sometimes make hard things easier to handle. Include your preschooler in making the plan to stop sucking his thumb. Offer him some ideas and talk through different options. By including him in the decision making, you are helping him build problem solving skills, as well as allowing him to feel in control of something that directly affects him.
Ignoring
Most children love attention and sometimes they don’t care if that attention is positive or negative. If you or others make a big deal out of your preschooler sucking her thumb, she may be continuing to do so for attention or a reaction from others. Try ignoring the behavior for a few days and it just might disappear on its own.
Positive Reinforcement
Offer your preschooler praise for not sucking her thumb. You can also use small rewards (e.g. extra story at bedtime, stay up a bit later, trip to the park) to reinforce her progress. Set small manageable goals (e.g. no thumb sucking during the car ride to school) and reward those goals with lots of praise! If you’d like to keep track of her progress and reward her with a larger reward, put stickers on a calendar to track the days she is successful in her efforts of not sucking her thumb.
Find the Cause
Most children suck their thumb as a way to soothe or calm themselves in stressful or unfamiliar situations. If you can identify the situation which triggers the thumb sucking behavior, you can help your preschooler find an alternate way to calm.
Remember that your preschooler is sucking his thumb to calm or soothe himself. Punishing or scolding may cause the thumb sucking behavior to increase. Don’t fret! Thumb sucking will soon be a thing of the past for your little preschooler.
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